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    Reconnecting with the Earth, Cyrah Dardas Collages Paintings with Handmade Pigments

    Images courtesy of Cyrah Dardas, Shana Merola, Na Forrest Lim, Library Street Collective, and CCS gallery, shared with permission

    Reconnecting with the Earth, Cyrah Dardas Collages Paintings with Handmade Pigments

    February 24, 2025

    ArtNature

    Kate Mothes

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    From oxidized metals, foraged plants, and botanical inks and dyes, Cyrah Dardas derives colors and textures from materials found in the earth. Based in Detroit, the artist reflects the juxtapositions of her surrounding landscape in paintings on cotton paper, merging human-made and organic materials in works redolent of Persian tapestries.

    In abstract compositions evocative of Georgia O’Keeffe’s sensual flower forms or the symbol-rich paintings of Hilma af Klint vis-à-vis the spiritualist movement, Dardas collages paper painted with handmade watercolors and quilts textiles with hand-dyed fabrics.

    “For the last few years, I have been thinking a lot about belonging and seeking to understand it through a more loving relationship to place,” she tells Colossal. “All of my work as an artist flows from this seeking.”

    Dardas employs the language of abstraction to explore the human psyche and the “patterns, behaviors, forms, colors, and movements I see in the living world,” she says. Recently, she’s been considering the impact of humans seeing ourselves as increasingly separate from both nature and one another, simultaneously fascinated and grieved by the fallacy of individualism—the confusion between the freedom to make good decisions and the perceived right to do whatever we want with no empathy or regard for how it will affect others.

    “In my practice, I ask myself, could I possibly foster some level of reciprocity with any—or all—of the many elements and beings that have brought me here and taken care of me?” Dardas says. “In order to do that, I know I need to at least find a way to connect to them differently than the models that modernity offers us. Art is my portal for that, a different type of connection.”

    Dardas invokes ancient, ancestral ways of being in the world by consciously connecting to her natural surroundings. She honors ecosystems and relationships that are naturally cooperative, nourishing, and sustaining, drawing contrasts between processes she views as extractive, like capitalism, patriarchal attitudes, or over-reliance on technology. She uses locally available materials and relies on analog techniques to prepare and process them.

    Describing herself as a “queer, eco-romantic artist and care worker,” Dardas examines the nuances of interdependency, growth, and life cycles. Much of her recent work is a reflection of her own pregnancy as she is currently in the “fleeting baby phase” of new parenthood. She says:

    I got curious about other beings that swell and gorge to create life—all the plant bodies of water holding seeds, feeding and nurturing them. I wanted to mirror them, thinking of myself as a gourd, a seed pod, a fruit. Like the many facets and expressions of queerness, I felt the experience of pregnancy was vast and delightfully undefinable, and I wanted to translate that feeling or mirroring into something visual.

    Dardas’s work is on view in the group exhibition Warp and Weft: Technologies within Textiles, presented by Library Street Collective at The Shepherd in Detroit, which continues through May 3. Find more on her website and Instagram.

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    Nicole McLaughlin’s Mixed-Media Sculptures Celebrate Craft, Heritage, and New Life

    “Fuentes de Vida; Gemela” (2023)

    Nicole McLaughlin’s Mixed-Media Sculptures Celebrate Craft, Heritage, and New Life

    January 8, 2025

    ArtCraft

    Kate Mothes

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    From ceramics and wool fiber, Nicole McLaughlin (previously) summons striking connections between materials, heritage, and personal experiences. She draws upon the rich traditions of historically domestic crafts to reconsider their roles today, merging ceramics and textiles into elegant, cascading wall sculptures.

    Drawing on artisanal trades like pottery and weaving, McLaughlin deconstructs preconceptions about form and function, emphasizing mediums, techniques, and themes through the unexpected pairing of stoneware and fiber. Her works encourage us to think critically about relationships between tenderness and strength or past and present.

    “Cordón de Vida” (2024), ceramic, tencel, indigo, wool, and cochineal, 27 x 60 x 4 inches. Courtesy of Anderson Yezerski Gallery

    Many of the pieces shown here are from McLaughlin’s ongoing Indigo Series, which explores the history of the Mayan pigment and its taps into the continuity of life cycles, history, and culture. Streams of wool fiber flow from central openings in glazed ceramic spheres, referencing the life-giving flow of water as a parallel to fertility and maternal care.

    McLaughlin gave birth to a daughter in early 2024, which dramatically shifted how she viewed her studio practice. The work in her most recent exhibition, String of Life at Anderson Yezerski Gallery, merges personal experiences and her Mexican cultural heritage, delving into themes of life and the transformative journey of motherhood.

    “The transformation of organic material echoes the transformative nature of motherhood,” McLaughlin said in a statement for the show. “The range of colors captures an intense emotional spectrum—from the vitality of birth to the softer, more intimate moments.”

    For McLaughlin, cochineal carries an equivalent significance. The brilliant magenta hue emerges from carmine dye, also known as cochineal, which comes from crushing an insect of the same name. The color plays a vital role in Indigenous material culture and heritage of the Americas.

    Detail of “Cordón de Vida”

    For the Aztecs and Mayans, red was symbolic of the gods, the sun, and blood, and the dye was traded throughout Central and South America for use in rituals, producing pigments for manuscripts and murals, and for dyeing cloth and feathers.

    “During the Mayan empire, indigo was combined with clay and incense to create a pigment known as Maya blue,” she says. “The pigment was said to hold the healing power of water in the agricultural community.”

    McLaughlin’s work is in the group exhibition OBJECTS: USA 2024 at R & Company in New York, which continues through tomorrow. The artist is currently taking a short break from the studio in anticipation of working toward a solo exhibition at Adamah Ceramics in Columbus, Ohio, which will open this fall. See more on her website, and follow updates on Instagram.

    “Agua; Sangre de Vida.” Photo by Logan Jackson, courtesy of R & Company

    “La Pequeña” (2024), ceramic, wool, and cochineal, 10.5 x 21 x 1.5 inches. Courtesy of Anderson Yezerski Gallery

    “La Marea que me Envuelve II” (2023). All images courtesy of Nicole McLaughlin, shared with permission

    Detail of “Fuentes de Vida; Gemela”

    Detail of “De Mi Vientre” (2024), ceramic, tencel, wool, and cochineal, 17.5 x 73 x 5.5 inches. Courtesy of Anderson Yezerski Gallery

    Untitled (2024), 10 x 10 feet

    Detail of “La Pequeña”

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